science wire

Clearing the dinner table is a task easy enough for a child to master, but it's a major challenge for robots. Robots are great at doing repetitive tasks but struggle when they must do something new or interact with the disorder and mess of the real world. Such tasks become especially challenging when they have many steps.

Since 2020, Delft Bioengineering Institute (BEI) organizes a cross-campus call for interdisciplinary research projects in the field of bioengineering.

A prototype of a robot designed to explore subsurface oceans of icy moons is reflected in the water's surface during a pool test at Caltech in September.

MIT CSAIL researchers used AI-generated images to train a robot dog in parkour, without real-world data.

TU Delft jointly wins in the XPRIZE Rainforest competition in the Amazon, Brazil Imagine using rapid and autonomous robot technology for research into the green and humid lungs of our planet; our global rainforests.

TU Delft jointly wins in the XPRIZE Rainforest competition in the Amazon, Brazil Imagine using rapid and autonomous robot technology for research into the green and humid lungs of our planet; our global rainforests.

Breakthrough training system utilizing imitation learning opens 'new frontier' in medical robotics A robot, trained for the first time by watching videos of seasoned surgeons, executed the same surgical procedures as skillfully as the human doctors.

TU Wien (Vienna) has developed a learning robot. If shown how to clean a sink, it can imitate human motions and adapt its knowledge flexibly to different situations.

A team of researchers seeks to understand how robotics can help engineers address environmental challenges, such as monitoring affected soils. When researchers need to collect data about a worksite's soil quality, they can run into several problems. Using excavators to access sites can be challenging, expensive, and may limit the ability to collect samples.

Study: A microsystem for in vivo wireless monitoring of plastic biliary stents using magnetoelastic sensors (DOI: 10.1038/s41378'024 -00772-8) Stents to treat various blockages in the human bo

Inspired by large language models, researchers develop a training technique that pools diverse data to teach robots new skills.

At the end of this week, the CYBATHLON will take place in Zurich, an international competition where individuals with disabilities perform challenging tasks in collaboration with cutting edge technology.

REGO brings together top academic and industrial experts from Europe to develop micro-robot swarms designed for complex, human-centered tasks in various industries.

A new method can train a neural network to sort corrupted data while anticipating next steps. It can make flexible plans for robots, generate high-quality video, and help AI agents navigate digital environments.

As children learn to ride a bike, adults can only guide them to a certain point. A large portion of developing this new skill depends on independent trial and error from the child. After practice, and perhaps a fall or two, children eventually learn how to balance themselves, steer around obstacles, and make informed decisions about their next biking path.

A new method called Clio enables robots to quickly map a scene and identify the items they need to complete a given set of tasks. Imagine having to straighten up a messy kitchen, starting with a counter littered with sauce packets. If your goal is to wipe the counter clean, you might sweep up the packets as a group.

To achieve greater efficiency, robots must develop more human-like skills, such as fast physical interaction.

In the international Cybathlon competition, people with physical disabilities undertake routine tasks with the aid of assistive technology that can be seamlessly integrated into everyday life.

Humans can grab a book from a shelf with little obvious thought. But it's a complex process for the brain that involves planning and navigating around obstacles, like other books or knickknacks.

Hexagonal electro-hydraulic modules act like artificial muscles that can be used to configure robots with various functions Newly developed hexagonal robot components can be easily assembled into high-speed robots in building block fashion.

Helping out the quad muscles kept study participants lifting safely despite fatigue, with an algorithm that smoothly shifts between lifting and carrying tasks Study: A versatile knee exoskeleton mitigates quadriceps fatigue in lifting, lowering, and carrying tasks (DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.adr8282) A set of knee exoskeletons, built with commercially available knee braces and drone motors at the University of Michigan, has been shown to help counteract fatigue in lifting and carrying tasks.

Exploring a valley and caves on Mars, searching for life: These are the goals of the German research initiative VaMEx.

A prototype of a robot built to access underwater areas where Antarctic ice shelves meet land is lowered through the ice during a field test north of Alaska in March.

Motor impairments currently affect about 5 million people in the United States. Physically assistive robots not only have the potential to help these individuals with daily tasks, they can significantly increase independence, well-being and quality of life. Large language models (LLMs) that can both comprehend and generate human language and code have been crucial to effective human-robot communication.

Experts from Carnegie Mellon University and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) piloted a six week experimental training program to study how sailors can develop fundamental engineering skills to keep pace with emerging technology.

Carnegie Mellon University will be a core partner in a new multi-institutional collaboration that has received $26 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch an Engineering Research Center (ERC) dedicated to revolutionizing the ability of robots to amplify human labor.

Picture this: hundreds of ant-sized robots climbing over rubble, under rocks and between debris to inspect the damage of a fallen building before human rescuers explore on-site.

An AI team coordinator aligns agents' beliefs about how to achieve a task, intervening when necessary to potentially help with tasks in search and rescue, hospitals, and video games.

Researchers working on large artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT have vast swaths of internet text, photos and videos to train systems.

Fish fins and insect wings are amazing pieces of natural engineering capable of efficiently moving their owners through water or air.

CSAIL researchers introduce a novel approach allowing robots to be trained in simulations of scanned home environments, paving the way for customized household automation accessible to anyone. At the top of many automation wish lists is a particularly time-consuming task: chores. The moonshot of many roboticists is cooking up the proper hardware and software combination so that a machine can learn "generalist" policies (the rules and strategies that guide robot behavior) that work everywhere, under all conditions.

An estimated 100 earthquakes worldwide cause damage each year. This damage includes collapsed buildings, downed electrical lines and more. For first responders, assessing the scene and focusing rescue efforts can be critical and risky. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute (RI) in the School of Computer Science have developed a new method for autonomous aerial robot exploration and multirobot coordination inside abandoned buildings that could help first responders gather information and make better-informed decisions after a disaster.

Yuichi Hirose has a dream - a dream that someday everyone will have access to a machine capable of knitting furniture.

Dr. Axel Bohmann is examining linguistic variation at the level of the individual. Edoardo Milana is investigating how "neurofluidic" systems can be integrated into soft robots.

Neural network controllers provide complex robots with stability guarantees, paving the way for the safer deployment of autonomous vehicles and industrial machines. Neural networks have made a seismic impact on how engineers design controllers for robots, catalyzing more adaptive and efficient machines.

The Technische Universität Ilmenau has just successfully completed the "Engineering for Smart Manufacturing (E4SM)" research project.

BMBF providing €20 million to fund robotics in Germany-University of Bonn heavily involved Some of the country's leading centers for robotics have joined forces and set up a consortium to develop the